The trend towards increasing transport demand - prerequisite for economic growth - is still challenging the European transport system. On the other hand Europe aims to reduce emissions dramatically. A crucial measure achieving this ambitious aim is to lower transport emissions by increasing the share of inherently more resource-friendly modes of transport.The “Intelligent Transport System for Innovative Intermodal Freight Transport” (TelliSys) will actively promote the EU’s objective of optimizing the performance of intermodal logistic chains and will provide smooth and cooperative interactions between different modes of transport.Scientific aim is to develop an intelligent transport system that is applicable for road (in line with Directive 96/53/EC), rail, short sea and inland shipping, which consists of a modular set of volume-optimised and traceable MegaSwapBoxes (MSB), an adapted trailer and a tractor for the road transport. Ideas and contributions from the consortium together with the advice of outstanding key players of the transport business guarantee the holistic approach and market acceptance of the project outcomes. TelliSys is the follow-up of the successful TelliBox project and the now modular MSB will be based on the unique selling propositions like stackability, three openable sides, three meters loading height, trimodality, pallet wide and cargo security. In addition, the new developed tractor will provide an extra low fifth wheel height (low deck) designed for volume-optimised road transport and the adapted trailer will be flexible to transport conventional loading units as well as the new MSBs.Within TelliSys an interdisciplinary European consortium of experts in the field of freight forwarding, manufacturing and science will deliver concepts, prototypes and a proof of concepts via extensive test runs. A complementary bundle of scientific evaluation methods, profitability calculations and risk mitigation actions will guarantee the project succes